Slide 1

SOCIOLINGUISTICS
LESSON 6
INSTRUCTOR: LE NGUYEN NHU ANH

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Slide 2

LANGUAGE VARIATION:
FOCUS ON USES
STYLE, CONTEXT, AND REGISTER

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Slide 3

Example 1
1. From a friend
Where were you last night? I rang to see if you wanted to
come to the movies.

2. In court from a lawyer

Could you tell the court where you were on the night of
Friday the seventeenth of March?

3.From a teacher to his pupils in school on the day after

Hallowe’en.
I know some of you went ‘trick- or- treating’ last night and so
I thought we might talk a bit today about how you got on. Did
you go out last night Jimmy?

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Slide 4

OUTLINE
• Addressee as an influence on
style
• Age of addressee
• Social background of addressee
• Accommodation theory
• Speech convergence
• How do speakers accommodate?
• Speech divergence
• Stylisation
• Accommodation problems
• Context, style and class
• Formal contexts and social roles
• Different styles within an
interview
• Colloquial style or the vernacular
• The interaction of social class and
style
• Hypercorrection
• Style in non- Western societies
• Register
• Sports announcer talk
• Syntactic inversion
• Heavy noun modification
• Routines and formulas
• Conclusion

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Slide 5

Addressee as an influence
on style
People use considerably more standard
forms to those they don’t know well, and
more vernacular forms to their friends.
Kid to adult

Kid to kid

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Slide 6

Addressee as an influence
on style
Age, gender, Degree of social
social roles, distance/solidarity
whether people
work together,
or are part of the
same family, and Social status
so on.

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Slide 7

Addressee as an influence
on style
Age of Addressee
Example 3
(Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Episode 28)

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Slide 8

Addressee as an influence
on style
Age of Addressee
People generally talk differently to children
and to adults – though some adjust their
speech style or ‘accommodate’ more than
others.

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Slide 9

Example 4
1.
Dear Paul
Thanks for your last letter and the subsequent postcards from
exotic resorts. We were all green with envy over your trip to
Rio with all expenses paid! How do you get to be so lucky!
Thanks also for the great T- shirt you sent for Rob’s
vowed to write to you in order to express his
birthday. He has
gratitude personally – but don’t hold your breath! He is
particularly embroiled in some new complex computer game
at present which is absorbing every spare moment.

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Slide 10

Example 4
2.
Dear Michael
Thank you very much for the letter you sent me. It was beautifully
written and I enjoyed reading it. I liked the postcards you sent
me from your holidays too. What a lovely time you had swimming
and surfing. I wished I was there too.

Robbie liked the T- shirt you chose for him very much. He
has been wearing it a lot. He has promised to write to you soon to
say thank you but he is very busy playing with his computer at
the moment. So you may have to wait a little while for his letter. I
hope mine will do instead for now.

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Slide 11

Addressee as an influence
on style
Age of Addressee
Many speakers also use a different style in addressing
elderly people, often with features similar to those
which characterise their speech to children
- Simpler vocabulary & grammar
- Use “we” rather than “you” to refer to the addressee
- Sing- song intonation
Example 5
It’s time for our [i.e., your] lunch now isn’t it Mary. We
[i.e., you] better wash our [i.e., your] hands.

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Slide 12

Addressee as an influence
on style
Social background of addressee
Example 6
a) Last week the British Prime Minister Mr David
Cameron met the Australian Premier Ms Julia
Gillard in Canberra . . . Their next meeting will not
be for several months.
b) Las’ week ||British Prime Minister ||David
Cameron met ||Australian Premier ||Julia Gillard
in Canberra . . . Their nex’ meeding won’t be for
sev’ral months.

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Slide 13

Addressee as an influence
on style
Social background of addressee

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Slide 14

Addressee as an influence
on style
Social background of addressee
Audience design: the influence of the
addressee or audience on a speaker’s style

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Slide 15

Addressee as an influence
on style
Social background of addressee
Example 7
better => beder | matter =>mader
- To people of the same social
background: 25%
- To customers from a lower
social class: adapt to their speech
(lowest, 78%)
- To the cleaner: 60%

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Slide 16

Accommodation Theory
Speech Convergence
Speech accommodation
When people talk to each other their speech
often becomes more similar => each person’s
speech converges towards the speech of the
person they are talking to.
- When the speakers like one another OR
- One speaker has a vested interest in pleasing
the other or putting them at ease
- A polite speech strategy

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Slide 17

Accommodation Theory
How do speakers accommodate?
• At a party when you respond to
and develop a topic introduced by
your addressee
• When people simplify their
vocabulary and grammar in
talking to foreigners or children
• When a complicated technical
message is ‘translated’ for the
benefit of someone who does not
know the jargon

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Slide 18

Accommodation Theory
How do speakers accommodate?
• When, in an interview with the
hospital matron, a nurse adopts some
of the matron’s pronunciation features
• In multilingual countries, people may
accommodate to others by selecting
the code or variety that is most
comfortable for their addressees
• In the market- place, people
sometimes accommodate to the
language of the person selling goods
in order to secure goodwill and,
hopefully, a good bargain

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Slide 19

Example 8

Accommodation Theory
Speech Divergence This is going
Welshtoisbe
Ffwcio
aadveyirnygfriendly
COOcLh!i!
langiunategreview

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Slide 20

Accommodation Theory
Speech Divergence
Speech divergence:
The respondents deliberately diverged from
the speech style, and even the language, of
the person addressing them

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Slide 21

Accommodation Theory
Speech Divergence

.
We no longer wish to be seen as accommodating to the
Western English- speaking powers

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Slide 22

Accommodation Theory
Speech Divergence

Now has the right

Maori activist to address the
Insist on court in Maori –
addressing the court provides
court in Maori interpreter
1987, Maori
declared official
status
Dun Mihaka

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Slide 23

Accommodation Theory
Speech Divergence
Accent divergence:
• Working- class men often respond to the university-
educated students who join them just for the summer
on the docks, in factories or in the shearing sheds by
increasing their swearing and using a higher frequency
of vernacular forms
• People who aspire to a higher social status will
diverge upwards from the speech of those from the
same social class => divergent pronunciations => signal
the speakers’ wish to distinguish themselves from
their addressees

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Slide 24

Accommodation Theory
Speech Divergence
• Speech divergence does not always indicate a
speaker’s negative attitudes towards the
addressees.
• Where the divergent forms are admired,
divergence can be used to benefit the
diverger.

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Slide 25

Accommodation Theory
Speech Divergence
Referee design:
• Speakers may also deliberately diverge both from
their own usual speech style and that of their
addressee(s) towards the style of a third party
(reference group, may not be present) for special
effect.
• Students imitate their teachers to amuse friends
• Adopt a prestige accent to impress somebody
• Television adverts include accent of other groups to create
humour or enhance attractiveness of products
• Singers draw on referee design when adopting features of
overseas singers’ styles…

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Slide 26

Accommodation Theory
Stylisation
Example 9
In the year 2000, Clara was a senior manager in a
commercial organisation. Because of her dignified and
directive style, her team nicknamed her ‘Queen Clara’, a
title she found amusing. At the beginning of a team
meeting, her colleagues teased her by asking how her
mother was, referring to the fact that the British Queen
Mother had recently had an accident. Recognising the
tease, she responded by adopting a hyperlectal British
accent modelled on that of Queen Elizabeth, saying: ‘My
husband and I are quite confident that the Queen Mother
is on the road to recovery.’

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Slide 27

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Slide 28

Accommodation Theory
Stylisation
Stylisation
• When someone goes beyond their usual or
normal ways of speaking and behaving and
engages in a ‘high’ or ‘strong’ performance of
some sort
• Speech of comedians and singers

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Slide 29

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Slide 30

Accommodation Theory
Stylisation
Stylisation can draw on any aspect of language.
• features of a particular regional accent,
• stigmatised vernacular grammatical features
• very formal grammar
• very erudite vocabulary
• high pitch
• a distinctive intonation pattern.
=> Parody & pantomime

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Slide 31

Accommodation Theory
Accommodation problems
• Overdoing convergence can offend listeners => perceived
as as patronising and ingratiating, as sycophantic, making
fun of others
• If the reasons appear manipulative => less likely to feel
positive about convergence
• => reactions to speech convergence and divergencedepend
on the reasons people attribute for the convergence or
divergence
• If divergence is perceived as unavoidable => more tolerant
than when it is considered deliberate.
• Deliberate divergence will be heard as uncooperative or
antagonistic.

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Slide 32

Accommodation Theory
Accommodation problems
old-fashioned
Example 11
Grant : The next thing he had an apoplectic
fit. I didn’t know what to do.
Brian : I think you have to make sure they
don’t swallow their tongues.

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Slide 33

Context, style and class

Formal contexts and social roles
Example 12
Yesterday in the Wellington District Court . . . the
All Black captain, Jock Hobbs, appeared as duty
solicitor. Presiding was his father, Judge M. F.
Hobbs.
Etiquette required Mr Hobbs to address his
father as Your Honour, or Sir, and the Bench had
to address counsel as Mr Hobbs . . .
[Mr Hobbs] could not remember the last time
he had to call his father Sir . . . Said the father to
son, when the son announced his appearance on
all matters as duty solicitor: ‘I appreciate the
difficulties you are labouring under, Mr Hobbs.’

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Slide 34

Context, style and class

Formal contexts and social roles
The choice of appropriate form is influenced by
the formality of the context and their relative
roles and statuses within that setting.

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Slide 35

Example 13
Judge : I see the cops say you were pickled
last night and were driving an old jalopy
down the middle of the road. True?
Defendant : Your honour, if I might be
permitted to address this allegation, I
should like to report that I was neither
inebriated nor indeed was I under the
influence of an alcoholic beverage of any
kind.

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Slide 36

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Slide 37

Context, style and class

Different syles within an interview

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Slide 38

Context, style and class

Different syles within an interview
Results:
the number of instances of standard variants
used in these styles was considerably higher
than in the careful interview style => speakers
used fewer vernacular forms in these styles
the amount of attention people were paying to
their speech => easy to elicit more formal styles.

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Slide 39

Context, style and class

Different syles within an interview
According to William Labov:
The vernacular refers to the style in which the minimum of
attention is given to the monitoring of speech (person’s
most relaxed/ basic style)
The observer’s paradox: observing (and recording) the way
a person speaks when they are not being observed.
use strategies to distract people from concentrating on
their own speech
When people were emotionally involved in the story they
were telling, they were not so aware of other factors
which favoured a more formal style

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Slide 40

Context, style and class

Colloquial style or the vernacular
There are other strategies besides topic manipulation
which have been used in order to capture people’s
most relaxed or vernacular speech style.
• Record small groups of people rather than
individuals
• Choose a very comfortable or informal setting

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Slide 41

Context, style and class

The interaction of social class and style
Example 17
Elizabeth’s nine- year- old daughter, Lily, took a phone
message for her. It read ‘arriving Tuesday at 10’. ‘Who
was it?’ she asked but Lily didn’t know. ‘It was a man and
he sounded like a teacher’ was all the information Lily
could provide. Elizabeth reviewed the possibilities
without any inspiration, and began to worry a little about
how to cater for this unexpected guest. In the event, the
caller phoned again on Tuesday morning. It was the
glazier who had promised to ring before arriving to put
in a new window. He didn’t sound at all like a teacher in
his conversation with Elizabeth. She concluded that it
was his careful style while dictating his message to Lily
which had misled her daughter.

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Slide 42

Context, style and class

The interaction of social class and style

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Slide 43

Context, style and class

The interaction of social class and style
• Information about the way people from different social
groups speak + information about the way people
speak in different contexts => features of social class
and contextual style interact.
• The same linguistic feature often distinguishes
between speakers socially (inter- speaker variation),
while within the speech of one person it distinguishes
different styles (intra- speaker variation).
• Shift styles => adopt the linguistic features of a
different group. => the lower social groups shift their
speech more as they move from one style to another
than the higher social groups do

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Slide 44

Context, style and class

Hypercorrection
Example 18
I remember where he was run over, not far
from our corner. He darted out about four feet
before a car and he got hit hard. We didn’t have
the heart to play ball or cards all morning. We
didn’t know we cared so much for him till he
was hurt.

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Slide 45

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Slide 46

Context, style and class

Hypercorrection
Hypercorrect usage goes beyond the norm; it
involves extending a form beyond the standard.
(‘Hypercorrect’ speech = ‘super- standard’)
tend to occur when people are involved in
unfamiliarly formal situations

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Slide 47

Style in non- Western

societies
Japanese has a special set of grammatical
contrasts for expressing politeness and
respect for others.
1. Speakers assess their status in relation to
their addressees (family background, gender
and age) and the formality of the context.
2. 2nd,They select from plain, polite and
deferential styles (word forms and syntax)

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Slide 48

Style in non- Western

societies

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Slide 49

Style in non- Western

societies
• Knowledge of the complexities of stylistic
variation in countries like Japan and Korea =>
a person’s educational level and social status.
• Better- educated people have greater control
of the various styles.

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Slide 50

Style in non- Western

societies
•Expressing deference in Tehran Persian involves
choosing from clusters of particular verb forms, as
well as carefully selecting the appropriate high,
neutral or low alternative from twenty- four personal
pronoun forms.
•The choice between the vernacular and standard
variants of some sounds is influenced by the social
context in which a person is speaking, independently
of their social group membership.

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Slide 51

Style in non- Western

societies
•The choices facing a speaker of Javanese involve two
ranked social dialects, within each of which there are
three stylistic levels.
•Both social group membership and social context
influence a speaker’s linguistic choices.
•There is also the possibility of raising any utterance
an additional ‘half- level’ by various linguistic means.
•Each level involves different pronunciations, different
grammatical forms and different items of vocabulary.

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Slide 52

Register
Example 22
In our gerontological sociolinguistic context, we
would argue that when, in intergenerational
encounters, contextual features trigger an
elderly (or even ‘aged’) identity in people, they
will assume communicative strategies they
believe to be associated with older speakers.

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Slide 53

Register
• Styles are often analysed along a scale of formality.
• Registers tend to be associated with particular
groups of people or sometimes specific situations of
use.
• Journalese, baby- talk, legalese, the language of
auctioneers, race- callers and sports commentators, the
language of airline pilots, criminals, financiers, politicians
and disc jockeys, the language of the courtroom and the
classroom
• The term ‘register’ here describes the language of
groups of people with common interests or jobs, or
the language used in situations associated with such
groups.

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Slide 54

Register
Sports announcer talk

• Play- by- play description: focuses on the action

• Telegraphic grammar: syntactic reduction + inversion of
normal word order
• colour commentary’: more discursive and leisurely speech with
which commentators fill in the often quite long spaces between
spurts of action

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Slide 55

Register
Sports announcer talk
Syntactic reduction

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Slide 56

Register
Sports announcer talk
Syntactic inversion

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Slide 57

Register
Sports announcer talk
Heavy noun modification

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Slide 58

Register
Sports announcer talk
Routines and formulas
Extensive use of oral formulas & routines (a small number of
fixed syntactic patterns and a narrow range of lexical items)
To reduce the memory burden on the speaker
Particular intonation patterns or tunes are used

Livestock auction samples:

https:/ / youtu.be/ dmd3xWy- KEE?t=247

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Slide 59

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Slide 60

Register
The specialised registers of occupational groups develop
initially from the desire for quick, efficient and precise
communication between people who share experience,
knowledge and skills.
Over time, the language of such groups develops more and
more characteristics – lexical, syntactic and even phonological
– which distinguish their communications from those of other
groups.
Eventually these specialised registers may be very difficult for
outsiders to penetrate.

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Slide 61

THAT’S ALL!

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